Basslink defends speed of progress

Fledgling telco Basslink Telecoms has defended the speed at which it is working to get the Melbourne to Hobart fibre-optic cable up and running, saying it was slated to be operational by April at the latest.

Fledgling telco Basslink Telecoms has defended the speed at which it is working to get the Melbourne to Hobart fibre-optic cable up and running, saying it was slated to be operational by April at the latest.

Michael Coates(Credit: Basslink)

"There is a misconception that this is very easy, ie, simply
lighting a fibre," said Michael Coates, the general manager of
Basslink Telecoms. "It's not." Coates has been leading the local
operation, which is based in Melbourne, holding responsibility
for network deliverables and customer outcomes.

He said that people weren't aware of the extra work which
needed to be done to remedy the fact that the Basslink fibre only ran undersea from
the coast of Tasmania to Victoria and not from Hobart to Melbourne, which is what will be delivered when all is completed.

Coates and his team could have laid new fibre for Basslink, but
they didn't want to duplicate infrastructure. Instead, they have
put arrangements in place to carry the data over alternate fibre
owned by other companies to cover the distance to the capitals.
This is mainly finished now, except on the Victorian end where
the team is currently completing final actions for the fibre
to be supplied and tested prior to commissioning.

Customers, such as internet service providers, government and
businesses, will connect to the cable in four datacentres, two in
Melbourne and two in Hobart — for which Coates needed to secure space
and access.

In November last year, Basslink
announced that it had chosen Ericsson as
a vendor. A support agreement has been nutted out with some non-critical items being closed off this week.

The necessary equipment Ericsson is supplying has arrived in the
country and Basslink has been installing it. There will
now be a rigorous testing period, Coates said. Network
stabilisation will start in February followed by an ironing-out
period, where faults such as a problem card might be found, he continued.

Coates has also been dealing with customers. He said that
customers had been secured, but declined to say how many or who
they were. He called Basslink's prices "incredibly
competitive".

Tasmanians have been long awaiting the cable, first planned
in 2000, to be lit up. In August 2007, Singaporean
company CitySpring Infrastructure Trust, bought Basslink for over $1 billion. It
took over a year, however, for an
agreement to be reached with parties involved on terms under which the cable's use could go ahead.

There have been hopes that having a backhaul competitor in Tasmania
— Telstra previously had been the only provider with working cable
across Bass Strait — would lower prices, although some believed
nothing would happen, with Basslink settling comfortably into the pricing levels already set.

To those who have voiced fears of a cosy duopoly, Coates
supplied the rejoinder that if it were so, customers wouldn't have
bothered signing on with Basslink, instead staying with the Telstra
status quo.

He did express the concern that consumers in Tasmania had
unrealistic expectations of the cable. "There is a presumption in
the wider public that everything is going to change instantly,"
Coates said. "It's in some part dependent on Basslink forcing
change through supply of services, but also on the ISPs and
carriers delivering the retail services to end customers.

"It's up to them whether they pass speed increases, cost
efficiencies and improved service through diversity onto the public
and enterprises. People need to ask their suppliers whose
infrastructure they deliver services into Tasmania on," he said.